October 30, 2015

First of all, I wanted to thank everyone who commented, posted, suggested, complimented, and/or just plain supported my last post. It’s great to have so much feedback on what I’m doing, and it really forces me to be accountable. So a big THANKS goes out to all of you! (More on that next time.)

So it’s been a little over a month since I started focusing on losing weight, gaining muscle, and just downright looking and feeling healthier (and better). So far, so good, and I’m sure you’ll be as happy as I am with the results. Take a look at this hot pic (sorry about the poor lighting):

Weight 563.4 lbs

Body Fat 94%

Blood type: Hershey’s Syrup

OK, so I backslid a little. After all, it’s holiday season. It’s hard to eat healthy with Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas all coming up. And Veteran’s Day. And the end of Daylight Savings. And a Black Friday potluck dinner. I’ll just eat whatever I feel like and then start my diet and exercise goals again after the new year….

Ah, but seriously….

Actually, I’m usually serious when I say that. I often get derailed and then plan to start over at a convenient time, like the turn of a century or at the beginning of a month that ends in “dwarp.” (No months do, by the way. Get it?) I have no problem with falling off the horse and getting back on, but my routine is a bit more convoluted:

Fall off horse

Go to nearest ice cream parlor

Order a double scoop of something highly caloric, topped with whipped cream and a 3rd scoop

Consume swiftly

Order another scoop, say it’s for my horse, consume it behind a dumpster in an alley in shame

Plan the perfect time to get on the horse—perhaps 3 weeks from now on Monday?

Eat whatever I want since it’ll “all go away” once I get back on that horse

Has anyone seen my horse? I swear it was just here…

Hey, is that a new pizza restaurant that just opened up?

You catch my drift, yes? And I’ve been drifting a lot this year.

But I will say that this past month has gone well so far. I won’t say I haven’t indulged at all, and in some cases, I’ve overindulged. (The hardest habit to break: trying out a restaurant’s take on macaroni and cheese at least once per restaurant.) I’ve had some dairy, sugar, and alcohol of special occasions (going-away party, outings with friends, Tuesdays), although in much smaller quantities than usual. Overall I feel like I’m off to a slow but productive start. I’ve abstained more than I’ve partaken. I’ve gotten in more cardio than usual (mostly just lots of walking). So here’s where I’m at:

Taken 10/29/15

Weight 155.2 lbs

Body Fat 15.6%

(Lowest weight 153.6 lbs, lowest body fat 15.3%)

I’m pretty happy with the numbers, and I’m pretty much at my weight goal. (I surpassed that goal but didn’t quite maintain it.) And I’ve made a dent in my body fat percentage as well. Not bad for just over a month of small changes. But of course, numbers don’t tell the whole story, so I won’t put too much “weight” (pun intended—didn’t you see the glaringly unnecessary quote marks??) on numbers. In fact, it looks like my belly might have gotten a little bigger! *gasp* “Patience, young grasshopper,” I tell myself. But along with being patient with the long-term plan, I’m also going to bump it up a notch with some revised goals:

Weight 150-152 lbs (I’m now focusing on a range rather than a set number)

The target date for these goals is 11/22/15. The first two can be easily measured. The others will need some monitoring and reevaluating as I go, and hopefully the photos will show some more substantial results. As they say, the proof is in the pudding.

Damn, now I want pudding.

Anyway, by the time you read this, I’ll be knee-deep in one of the three Halloween parties I’m attending today. Don’t worry. I’ll exercise moderation. And tomorrow, I’ll exercise.

This is one of my favorite quotes, not only because it comes from a catchy song written by one of my favorite musicians (known to most people as “Todd who??”), but also because, for me, it sums up the whole “change must come from within” idea better than any of the other millions of quotes about that concept. Keep your Mahatma Ghandi* and your Viktor Frankl** and your Sheryl Crow.*** I’ll take advice from a ‘90s song by a guy who’s biggest hit was in the ‘70s.

If that last sentence didn’t tip you off, I’ll spell it out for you: I don’t always make the best decisions. I take on projects but lose momentum when other projects catch my attention. I buy way too many books only to have them take up way too much space and gather way too much dust. I...ahem...start blogs and let them become dormant. I procrastinate with everything from work to exercise, thinking it’ll all happen eventually. Too many self-assigned tasks, not enough getting done. More talking than doing. More dreaming than being.

Some might call that “being human.” I get that. No one’s perfect. But I don’t want to be perfect. I’m just tired of being “human.” I want to be a better human.

So I need to change.

But where to start? Where to start?

This past summer, the answer hit me like a punch in the stomach. In July, I visited friends and family, and someone snagged this photo of me at a public pool. Behold!

7/5/15, taken by a very cruel person….

Now I know I can have a little bit of a gut now and then, but for a good many years, I had this image in my mind that it wasn’t so…gutty. For the first time in a long while, I was disturbed by my distended tum-tum. (Never mind the fact that I had a small girl growing out of my armpit.) After seeing this pic, I swore I would get back on track with my diet and exercise.

It’s been 11 long weeks, but here are some updated photos. You can see how I’ve progressed in what some might consider a ridiculously short amount of time.

Nothing changed! I still have a ponderous gut! If anything, I think I might have gained weight! It looks like I’m smuggling a Christmas ham (with all the fixings, including another ham) under a flesh-colored shirt. And it’s not as if I actually tried to lose it and failed. I just….didn’t do a damn thing. Unless “eating crap” counts as doing a damn thing. What the hell is wrong with me??

OK, perhaps I’m being too critical. I just turned 46, for crying out loud. Lots of guys my age have a gut. I don’t have unrealistic expectations about what I think I should look like. Who has time to exercise? Fried food isn’t that bad for you. Portion control is for suckers!

And there it is. Rationalizing. Excuses. Laziness.

I’ve weighed more in the past, and I worked hard to lose it (and succeeded). I don’t “struggle” with weight issues the way much heavier people do. I’m not morbidly obese. My problem with my gut isn’t really a problem in the grand scheme of things. It’s just that it won’t go away.

Of course, that’s the thing. It won’t "just go away." I need to make it go away. So here I go. I always have reasons to lose weight (health, ego, pending offer to model for Hugo Boss, etc.) but now I’m finally able to internalize the reasons, much like a smoker going from thinking, “Yeah, I guess I should probably quit,” to “Holy [expletive deleted], these things are killing me!”

Say, doesn’t smoking help people lose weight? Hmmm….

Sorry, got sidetracked. Anyway, truth be told, losing weight isn’t the only goal. A decrease in body fat is perhaps even more important. And I decided that making a public announcement might help keep me on track. So the plan is to keep a public log (a “plog,” if you will) of my progress. No excuses, no stalling, no quitting, and no more pictures that look like what you’ve just seen. Just accountability in the form of an update every 2 weeks or so. If I fail that, you can beat me with a stick.****

So the short-term tasks are easy. I’ll be focusing on:

-A better and more healthful diet

-Portion control

-Getting more (and better) sleep

-Exercising more (cardio, weights, yoga)

-Chocolate cake! (that is, not being afraid to have a treat now and then)

-Working towards:

Weight 155 lbs

Body Fat 12%

Be more toned & muscular

Look less like a homeless cat

Thanks to expensive predictive modeling software, I have been able to generate an image of what I could look like if I stick to a rigorous exercise plan and strict diet:

I still have a bit of a gut, but apparently I get a dog. Woo hoo!

Wish me luck! No, don’t. Luck has nothing to do with it. Wish me discipline! And stay tuned for a progress report, other changes I want to make (like, say, blogging more), and perhaps a post or two about completely unrelated things (i.e. more blogging).

February 21, 2012

If any of you know me even just a little bit, you know I love languages. Learning languages originally was a way for me to meet people while traveling. Well, actually, learning languages was originally a way for me to meet girls. And then it was a way for me to meet girls while traveling.

But after a while, I started studying languages for the fun of it. Sure, travel (and women) always added to the desire to learn—going anywhere for a few days was enough of a reason to learn 100-200 words in the local language. But since my traveling has *gasp* slowed down a bit, I don’t focus on just the languages I might need someday. Instead, I’ve been delving into languages just to learn them. Sure, I might never go to Mongolia, Myanmar, or Tuva, but that hasn’t stopped me from picking up a few words here and there.

In fact, my love of languages has slowly morphed into a passion for linguistics, and I’ve been looking into pursuing a Ph.D. in the Linguistics Dept. here at UCSB. Originally I wanted to work on a series of language books (phrasebooks and learning methods), and so I looked into a degree in order to get an added credential to help me be more publishable. And a part of me still plans to go the book-writing route, credential or no.

But as of late, I’ve discovered the world or Language Documentation, Endangerment, and Revitalization. It turns out that out of the 6900+ languages in the world (not including ones that are no longer being spoken), only about 500 or so (I’ve been told) have been properly documented in some way . And we lose a language on average every two weeks when the last speaker of that language dies. But languages don’t always die out naturally. Sometimes languages fade due to government oppression (many Native American languages withered this way). Other languages lose popularity with the younger generations who want to learn a more popular language and refuse to speak their native tongue. Personally, I’d like to see these languages continue to thrive.

So my latest focus on languages is in this area. UCSB has a great grad program for Language Documentation and Revitalization. But that’s a 7-year program, and I want to do stuff NOW! So while I’m still contemplating grad school, I’m also looking into raising awareness and working on being an advocate for causes I deem worthy of supporting. My first one is supporting Lost Words, a documentary about saving Native American languages. You can read how to help out at:

So you’ll probably be hearing a lot more from me regarding this cause as well as others regarding dying languages and ways to save them. You have been warned.

In the meantime, if any of you have any suggestions, advice, questions, comments, etc. regarding languages on the verge of becoming extinct or ways to keep languages alive, feel free to pass them my way!

April 04, 2011

So...today’s an interesting day. A year ago today, I married two dear friends/ex-coworkers (I’m an ordained minister, not a polygamist). It’s the birthday of an ex I haven’t spoken to eons. This morning, I was standing about 50 feet away from a nasty accident involving a driver accidentally plowing into a parked car. (Luckily no one was hurt.) This happened right after I left my new apartment.

Oh, and it’s the first day I woke up in my new apartment.

Less than three weeks ago, I was given the boot from my old place. OK, that sounds a bit harsh. The reality is that my housemates were very cool about everything. They’re getting ready to start a family, and they’ve even scouted out bigger houses we all could live in. But since they couldn’t find anything decent, their only choice was to ask me to leave. But they were glad to give me plenty of time to find a new place. Truth be told, I couldn’t have asked for better housemates.

As luck would have it, I found a place right away, just five blocks from their place. It’s a 1-bedroom, $1050/mo. (an amazing price in Santa Barbara), month-to-month rental agreement (no long-term lease, although I can see myself living there for a long time), and it comes with lots of space and sunlight. Within a week of looking at the place, it became mine for the taking. Seems like it was meant to be.

While I’ve always wanted my own space again—it’s been almost eight years since I lived alone)—I’ve been reluctant to look for my own place. That is to say, I’ve been unforgivably lazy about it. And downright complacent. I got comfortable since I had a great deal on rent and utilities. Now, things will be a little trickier. My rent has doubled. I have to pay utilities. I have to feed myself every day.

Thank god.

Having to deal with this transition, I’ve come face-to-face with a bedroom and a garage full of my things: magazines I hoped to read; drafts of stories I promised myself I’d finish; mementos of relationships that no longer hold any sentimental value. Most of these items haven’t made it into the new place. Some have gone to Goodwill. Others got tossed in the recycling bin. Some even went straight into the trash. My apartment is a good size, and I could probably store everything I had in the old place. But I won’t. It’s my new home now. I can have guests stay when they visit. I can walk around naked. I can walk around naked when guests visit. (Ew.)I can bring dates home now. I can go on actual dates now. I WANT to go out on dates now. I haven’t felt this way in years! I can be as dirty and lazy as I want to be and scatter my books and clothes and dishes everywhere if I so choose.

But the best part is that I choose not to. I choose to make it not just my home, but a home I can be proud of. I have space for lots of shelves. I have furniture and dishes once again. I can make my home a place of order and organization, comfort and cleanliness, devoid of junk I’d do little more with than store in a box that sits in a corner indefinitely.

Sure, there are still a few frivolous things I’m holding on to. There are some books I just couldn’t rid myself of before reading them. Most of my rough drafts of the Great American Magazine Article Comparing Phrasebooks are still stashed in boxes. But now’s the time to work through all of that. Having no cable TV (and perhaps no internet, we’ll see if that’s possible to live without for a while) will give me a lot more time for languages, reading, writing, cooking...the list goes on. So far, I’ve finished a book I’ve been wanting to read for a year, and I’m getting through another one I don’t even remember when I bought it. I’ve got my Turkish language resources in one place, so I can start studying properly. There's a cabinet in my kitchen I'm using strictly for cookbooks whose spines will be cracked soon. And I’ve got a pile of old writing samples on my dining room table (“OMG! I have a dining room!” my inner voice squeals) ready to be edited and revised.

And hey! I even have a blog post up.

Granted, not a great one. A bit rushed, and somewhat contrived. It rambles on humorlessly. And if I had the time to proofread this, I’m sure I’d find typos galore. Let's face it, it's about as compelling as something John Grisham would write if he were dead. But it’s a start.

February 16, 2010

As many of you noticed, I’ve had a series of blogs over the years but have had limited activity on each and every one of them. I can’t say I’m surprised when I’m constantly being asked the same thing by friends and family: “Are you really going to wear that outfit in public?” And then, if they have the time or interest, they ask me, “When are you going to post something on your blog?” I find I always give the same response: I shout “Look over there,” point to an imaginary centaur (or imaginary condor, depending on my mood) and then run away, often while giggling softly.

The truth is—and this is very embarrassing to say coming from an up-and-coming travel writer—I hate to write. I love (love love) coming up with something creative, crafty, or (and some say this has yet to happen) humorous. I enjoy when the perfect combination of words comes to mind (specifically to my mind). And I roll around the floor in an intoxicated stupor like a tabby high on catnip whenever I see my words reproduced on the printed page, or even online. Of course, it’s most rewarding when someone else chooses to publish my words, but even a self-posted blog entry is an ego boost.

January 20, 2009

I watched the inauguration today. I’ll see it again tonight at a friend’s house. ‘Twas truly amazing watching history being made. I’ve never been horribly interested in politics, but after the last 8 years, it’s hard not to take an interest in what’s going on in D.C.

So the overall feeling—not just for me but for thousands of others, it seems—is a sense of imminent change and improvement. But while these sentiments are for the country, I can’t deny that I feel a drastic need to improve myself. Now more than ever.

Every year I make resolutions, and every year most (if not all) get broken, if only briefly. Some resolutions are easy to restart, and others get derailed completely. But this time there’s greater motivation for me to live better, to get a better job, to save more money. To lose my gut, to travel more and to get more travel writing published. To be healthy, to make smart decisions, to be a better person. To truly realize my potential. And to blog more.

Maybe it’s temporary inspiration, and perhaps the momentum will fade as it often does with resolutions. Perhaps my inspiration will rise and fall with the successes and failures of the President. Or perhaps, once I’ve overcome the initial inertia, I’ll find the energy to keep going. After all, the hardest thing about getting a rock down a hill is the initial push. A body at rest tends to stay that way, a body in motion tends to keep moving. Where the difference lies, I’m hopefully going to find out.

Welcome, everybody, to the start of an amazing year. For me. And for all of us.

July 11, 2008

Just a quick note to say I'm back and writing again after a long hiatus. I'll post a longer letter this weekend, but I wanted to get a post in today since my usual blog-week runs Fridat-Thursday. Hope you all are well, and you'll be hearing from me soon!

Craig and Linda, the folks who run ITP, had asked me to join their list of writers after reading my blogs and learning that I’m planning to do more travel writing. While I’ve only corresponded with Craig via e-mail, if you listen to any of their podcasts, you’ll probably suspect they’re some of the friendliest and most easy-going people around, as did I. (Or is that “easiest-going”?)

May 06, 2008

OK, I got memed by my good pal Chryss. For those of you new to the meme game, it’s basically a chance to talk about myself (i.e. it’s all about me-me). Here are the rules:

The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.

Each player answers the questions about himself or herself.

At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.